During this year we commemorate 75 years of continuous broadcasting. Today’s message was written and presented by Richard L. Evans on December 25, 1955.

On this day, and even at this hour, there comes into our consciousness a sense of countless scenes and settings that we should like to look in upon, across this beloved land, and in many other blessed places, across the wide world: The sending of sincere messages; the giving and the getting of gifts; the going and the coming from places of worship; the warm exchange of greetings of families and friends; the turning homeward; the being at home (or the wishing that we were); the sweet, whispered conspiracies; the bursting in of children; the light in their eyes; the laughter on their lips; the arms around Grandma and Grandpa; the appreciation to parents; the tempting odors from the kitchen with their promise of a wonderful kind of overeating (approved or tolerated “just this once”); the mellowing of feelings; the melting of hearts; the wonderful sense of doing something for someone!

It is different and indefinable. One can feel it in the very air, in the very breath we breathe. Christmas gives a warm and wonderful sense of belonging. It also adds an acute kind of loneliness for those who are away, and for those who live in loneliness. No one should ever be left in loneliness at Christmas—for the message, the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of homecoming—of homecoming to our loved ones here, and ultimately of homecoming to our loved ones, in heaven, hereafter.

This is our Father’s declared purpose among men; this is His purpose for all His children, for the whole human family—a heavenly kind of homecoming —and for this He sent His Only Begotten Son, not to condemn, but to save, to redeem us, to bring us back—to happiness, to peace, to everlasting life with those we love—by means that we do not altogether understand, but by ways that will lead us, with our loved ones, where we want to go, as we have the faith to follow.

This was the mission and message of Jesus the Christ, the Saviour and Redeemer of mankind. This was the cause of His coming and of His atonement for us all—as somehow, in the plan and purpose of the Father, He did for us what we could not do for ourselves.

And so the spirit of Christmas is the spirit of homecoming, of belonging, of the wonderful warmth and welcome of family and friends, and of the opening of hearts for the whole human family. Thank God for Christmas—and for homecoming—and for all that makes this so different a day. [In The Everlasting Things (1957), 225–26.]

© by the Richard L. Evans family. Used by permission